


courtship

by valety



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Flirting, Fluff, Nonverbal Frisk, Other, POV Second Person, Post-Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 11:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5706160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valety/pseuds/valety
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chara's been giving Asriel a lot of presents lately. Asriel wants to return the favour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	courtship

**Author's Note:**

> chara is basically a neko atsume cat

"Hold out your hand."

You obey, and Chara drops a rock onto your palm. You hold it in the air, watching how it sparkles in the sun. You don't know enough about rocks to properly identify it, but it's very smooth, like a small stone egg. 

"Thank you," you tell them. "It's very nice."

Chara gives a curt little nod and walks away, leaving you alone again, and so you pocket the stone and return to weeding the garden.

Later, back in your bedroom, you drop the pebble in the box where you keep all of Chara's little gifts: a bright orange leaf, a feather, a sprig of pussy willows, several ancient peppermints wrapped in cellophane. You're not completely sure what you're meant to be doing with them, but if Chara thinks you'll like them, then you do, enough to want to keep them all as long as possible.

Frisk thinks the whole thing is hilarious.

 _Are you sure they're not just using you as a garbage can?_ they joke one day when Chara offers you a scrap of ribbon. 

You feel the silk between your fingers. It's slippery and smooth, pleasant to the touch, and a shade of gentle red that's pleasant to the eye as well. It might be your imagination, but you think it comes quite close to the colour of your eyes.

Something flutters in your chest. 

"It's okay," you tell them with a smile, fingering the silk. "Even if they are, I don't mind."

The ribbon, too, goes inside your box that evening. When you're going through the contents, the fluttering returns. It's like a treasure chest, you think; a collection of all the proof that Chara thinks of you sometimes. Proof that Chara wants to share their life with you.

You keep your eyes peeled for little ways you can repay them. You're admittedly not very good at this - they have a knack for bringing you things you'd otherwise overlook, tiny treasures hidden underneath the murk of everyday life. It's a murk you need more practice combing through. Still, you can pull them onto your lap when they start complaining of the cold, and you can tie their scarf for them before you go outside together, and you can pour them tea when you make yourself a pot  - extra sugar, extra milk, nice and light and sweet for when they're not in a Tea Appreciation kind of mood. 

"Chara, please be careful," your mother says when the four of you are on a walk one day and Chara stops to shove their hand into a pile of leaves sitting by the curb. "There might be something dangerous or unclean in there." 

"Sorry," they apologize in a not-at-all apologetic way. "I'll _leaf_ it alone."

Your mother chuckles at the pun, and while she's still distracted, Chara beckons you towards them. By now you're fully trained and know to hold your hand out. You do so, and they drop a gleaming silver coin into your palm.

You smile and tuck it into your pocket. "Thank you, Chara," you say.

They turn a little pink. You wonder if you can make them even pinker, then lean in and peck them on the cheek to see. Chara squeaks, covering their face with their hands. Frisk giggles.

"You're blushing," you say, feeling pleased. It's cute. _They're_ cute.

"It's just the cold," Chara mutters. They tug their scarf up even higher, covering their nose and mouth and leaving just their narrowed eyes exposed. 

"Let me warm you up, then!" you say, and you throw your arms around them, pulling them towards you in a sudden bear hug as they squawk in protest.

But as fun as it can be to hug them, you can't help but want to do a little more. A hug is nothing tangible, after all. You have a treasure chest of proof that Chara likes you, but you have nothing you can offer them in turn. What if they forget someday and you're not there to remind them? 

The thought is absolutely unacceptable.

They come to sit beside you on the couch one day, eyes fixated on their book as they pretend to not have noticed you. They lean against you wordlessly, and for a while, the only sounds are the scribbling of your pencil on your sketchbook and the occasional turning of a page.

But then you hear the crinkle of a wrapper, and when you glance back down, you see that Chara has a chocolate bar.

They break off a square and twist around so that they're facing you.  "Open up," they command, their face impassive.

You obediently do so, and Chara smiles, looking pleased. They press the square of chocolate into your mouth and their smile grows even wider when you accept it. 

You share the rest of the chocolate bar that way, Chara eating one square and giving you another as they pretend to read their book and you pretend to still be drawing.

 _Maybe they're conditioning you,_ Frisk suggests when they watch you do the dishes later _. You get chocolate if you're good.  
_

"I don't think so," you reply. "Wouldn't they be more consistent if they were?"

 _A mystery then,_ Frisk answers with a shrug.

You shrug right back.

It doesn't really matter, anyway. You actually kind of like the way they give you things, even if the presents don't make sense. You're not about to question it. And the sharing of the chocolate opens up a whole new world of possibilities; even if you aren't very good at finding special rocks and feathers, you can definitely get them food. Maybe you can pay them back after all.

Their eyes light up when you offer them the tin of tea. 

"It's supposed to help you sleep," you say as Chara twists off the lid and sniffs the fragrant leaves. You'd picked it thinking of their nightmares and the bags beneath their eyes. "But, I mean, it tastes nice, too." 

"I want to try it!" they say, eyes still gleaming. "I'll make us some right now."

The tea fulfills its promise and you wind up napping on each other on the couch, only waking up when your phone starts vibrating. You have a text from Frisk featuring seven rows of winky faces and a picture of you and Chara sleeping.

Secretly, you save the photo. Secretly, you set it as your background. Secretly, you spend the rest of the evening sneaking peeks at Chara's sleeping face, smiling dopily every time you do until you finally have to turn your phone off to keep yourself from looking anymore. 

Their next gift is different than the gifts they've given you before. It's not a hidden treasure taken from the yard, a memento of their daily life. Instead, it's a tiny knitted rabbit, made from pale green wool. 

Their face is very, very red when they offer it to you. 

"I made it while you guys were at school," they mumble, picking at the hem of their sweater. 

The rabbit's small and soft, with floppy ears and a tiny knitted smile. "It's _cute!_ " you cry as you admire it.

"You remind me of a rabbit sometimes," they say by way of explanation, staring at their shoes. 

You clip the rabbit to your backpack, bringing it along with you as you go about your day. When not grinning at the picture on your phone, you're grinning at the rabbit, and all day long your mind is full of Chara and their presents and how wonderful and sweet they really are, even if they rarely ever show that side to other people. _I'm special,_ you think, feeling giddy. You're the only one they want to share themselves with. Nobody else can have them. Not this part of them, at least.

 _I changed my mind,_ Frisk tells you when they see you looking at the rabbit for the hundredth time. _They're not conditioning you, they're doing some kind of magic ritual. The rabbit is a charm and it's making you go all loopy.  
_

"I don't care," you say. "I need to do something for them too. Do you have any ideas?"

 _That's easy!_ Frisk signs. _Their favourite things are flowers and chocolate. Aren't those the standard gifts for when you're trying to seduce somebody?_

"I'm not trying to _seduce_ them," you say, face hot, and Frisk pats you on the shoulder with a sympathetic smile. 

Flowers, though. That's not a bad idea. You buy them chocolate all the time, but never flowers. And it's colder now, so they won't be able to find as many on their own these days. 

In the end, you stop by the flower shop on the way home from school, telling Frisk and your mother to go ahead without you.

"You're late," Chara says accusingly the moment you step into the house, hands planted on their hips and a scowl on their face. "Toriel and Frisk got back over half an - "

They fall silent when they see the tiny ceramic pot you're holding. You think they might be daisies, but you aren't sure; you'd just picked the cheerfullest, yellowest flowers in the store.

"Aren't they pretty?" you ask. "I thought you'd like them for your room, since we won't be able to work in the garden soon."

Chara doesn't answer. Instead the take the flowers, and then they bolt upstairs.

 _You're wearing them down!_ Frisk cheers from the living room, bouncing on their heels. _Soon you'll have them swooning!_

"I don't need them swooning," you say. "I just wanted to do something nice for them."

But privately you feel as though you've won something, a round in a game that you don't remember starting.

When Chara comes back downstairs, they kiss you on the cheek, pressing a yellow petal into your hand. "You're a nerd," they say, voice soft, and when they tug on one of your ears, they do it so gently that it's more of a caress than an attack.

If this is now a contest, you're not quite sure who's winning, but you've decided that you're not about to lose.

All throughout the evening, Chara offers you small tokens. They feed you their dessert, using _my slice is better than yours, try it and see_ as an excuse. When knitting, they tie a piece of pale green string around your horn without a word. They find a yellow button on the carpet and place it on your nose, smirking as you try to balance it, and Frisk watches all the while, making kissy faces at you from behind Chara's back. You do your best to ignore them.

You try to think of other ways to pay them back, gifts to offer in exchange. The tin of tea and pot of daisies are sitting on display in their bedroom, but the tea may soon run out and the plant may someday die. You need to think of something permanent, an _I love you_ that will never leave them.

There's jewellery, of course. Another standard, Frisk would say. But the two of you already have your necklaces and you know they don't like earrings. A ring would be too much; you're blushing at the thought.

You dawdle after school again one day, trying to find something small that they'll nevertheless enjoy. You settle on a bracelet, choosing one that's made of polished wooden beads - something they can toy with when they need to fidget, something they can wear but easily take off. Something simple, but something nice. Something that says _I thought about you._

You give it to them when it's bedtime, knocking at their door in your pajamas. They answer in their nightshirt, already with a bedhead, and you tell them, "Hold out your hand."

They obey. You slide the bracelet onto their wrist.

Their eyes widen when they see it. "Seriously, Asriel?" they ask, glaring up at you.

"Do you like it?"

"You keep showing me up!" they cry, but there's no venom in their words; instead they look like they might laugh. A _real_ laugh, not their nervous giggle, and you feel like you might laugh as well.

"I just want to pay you back," you say, still holding their hand in yours.

"I'm trying to pay _you_ back!"

"For what?"

"For being so _nice_ all the time!"

"I'm nice because I _want_ to be," you tell them. "You don't have to pay me back."

"You're such a goober," Chara mutters, and they kick you very gently in the shin. "Are you trying to embarrass me?"

You grin. "Maybe," you reply. 

And because you have their hand in yours right now, you bring it to your mouth and brush your lips against their knuckles. They yank their hand away, blushing even deeper. They look nice in red, you think.

Their mouth is twitching at the corners now. They're already plucking at the bracelet, playing with the beads, and you feel can feel your chest begin to swell in pride.

"Just you wait," Chara says. "I'm going to win."

You still don't know what game this is or what the stakes may be, but you already know that isn't true. You don't say that, though; instead you say, "I like this game," and Chara smacks you on the arm.

"Dork," they retort, but they're smiling and you know they aren't mad.

They're still wearing the bracelet when they come downstairs that morning, much to your satisfaction. But then they stop beside you at the table, setting something down beside your plate.

"I made a friend for your rabbit," they say, looking equal parts nervous and smug.

You pick it up and examine it. It's a tiny red cat wearing an even tinier knitted frown.

A perfect match for your rabbit, in your opinion. You place a kiss upon its head while Chara's watching, grinning when you turn to them and say, "It's adorable."

They snatch back the cat and storm out of the room. When you go to get your backpack later, you find it clipped beside your rabbit.

They give you bottlecaps and coloured pencils and candy taken from their private hoard, tiny favours proving that they think of you. You give them flower seeds and tea leaves and words as sweet as you can make them, even if you don't quite know what you are doing, all to prove to them that you are thinking of them too. Their handmade charms dangle from your bag and Frisk watches with a knowing gleam in their eyes whenever they catch you fiddling with them. Slowly, steadily, the number of pictures that you have of Chara on your phone begins to grow, and slowly, steadily, Chara starts collecting pictures of you too.

You don't know what the two of you are doing, exactly, but if this _is_ a game, it's one you never want to end.

**Author's Note:**

> *sailor moon pose* friendly reminder that my fanfic twitter is [@lumabops](https://twitter.com/lumabops). it's locked because of Reasons but I accept all follow requests


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